MUSIC REVIEW : Consortium Angeli Wings It in Glendale

There was something endearingly foolhardy about the program devised by Consortium Angeli for its Friday concert in Glendale’s tiny Central Christian Church.

It was as if a bunch of generous, music-loving folks had got together and said, “Let’s do all our favorite music in one vast pass, whatever our means, and share it with our friends”: Brahms’ “Alto Rhapsody,” the huge, C-minor Mass of Mozart, K. 427, and the even huger oratorio, “A Child of Our Time” by Michael Tippett.

Since the Tippett was presented in an abridged (by at least one-third) edition, the evening did not quite last forever.

And, surprisingly, much of what happened was effective.

Brahms’ exquisite setting of Goethe’s musing on spiritual survival, sensibly paced by conductor Eli Saenz, was delivered with creamily secure tone by contralto soloist Kathryn Underwood, with the backing of a well-drilled male chorus.

But the seams showed--oh my, did they!--in Tippett’s cry for tolerance and brotherhood, with its gut-wrenching juxtaposition of sophisticated 20th-Century styles and the purity and vigor of black American spirituals.

The 30-member chorus sang with ringing conviction and there were strong solo contributions from soprano Karen La Croix and veteran tenor Dale Ziegler. The villains in the piece were the strings of an undermanned, seemingly under-rehearsed orchestra.

Mozart, however, emerged triumphant despite the odds.

Again, the choral work was appealingly lusty, with Saenz averting chaos by alertly decelerating his stylishly fast, crisp initial pace when it became obvious that the laggard orchestra was otherwise engaged.

Soprano Laurel James bravely managed the killing tessitura, if not quite the fioritura, of “Et incarnatus est.” But honors among a solo quartet that also included Ziegler and bass Scott Raines went to mezzo Leslie Inman Sabedra: a bit raw, but with a strong, wide-ranging, flexible instrument propelled by the kind of rhythmic snap one wants of any singer, to say nothing of a Mozart singer.